Car Accident Medical Bills

Answer:

In Florida, we often get calls from people who are injured in car accidents about their medical bills and who will pay for those. We are currently under a system of no-fault coverage. Each year in the legislature the trial lawyers approach the legislature about getting rid of this no-fault requirement, in exchange for that, having bodily injury coverage and medical benefit payments. PIP, personal injury protection coverage, pays the first 80% of your reasonable medical expenses when you’re injured in a car accident. You’re required to have that coverage. If you don’t have that coverage, because we do have uninsured drivers, then there’s no way to pay for your medical bills. If the at fault driver has coverage, they would get a set off for the first $10,000 of your medical expenses, even if you make a recovery. That means that you would pay for your medical bills yourself out of your own pocket. Personal injury protection coverage pays the first 80% of your reasonable medical bills and then you can actually purchase coverage called medical payments coverage. The medical payments benefits, if you pay for that, will pay the other 20% so that you owe nothing for your medical expenses. They’re paid from your automobile insurance policy. If you make a recovery from the at fault party causing your injuries, you don’t have to pay back the 80%, the PIP coverage. There’s a contractual obligation to pay some portion of that medical payment coverage back. We often can get the insurance companies to waive it, like we did in a case recently where the client had a substantial amount of medical payment benefits, $20,000. We were able to get her insurance company to waive that to increase the amount of compensation in her pocket. We have no fault law and that means that you must have personal injury protection coverage that pays the first 80% of your bills, even when someone else causes your injuries.